The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
by Shannon Chakraborty

★★★★★

THAT WAS SO GOOD ???
LITERALLY BOOK OF THE YEAR
Everything was so well written and all the characters were so multidimensional and I got so attached to all of them, I will definitely pick up the next book when it comes out!! (+ the comedic timing of some lines made me laugh out loud)

May 31 - Jun 6

I Who Have Never Known Men
by Jacqueline Harpman

★★☆☆☆

This is one of those books were i really feel like i missed what the hype was all about

tbh i just found it boring

audiobook for the first 44% then ebook for the rest because it bored me too much :(

May 14 - Jun 10

Deep End
by Ali Hazelwood

★★★☆☆

read this in a day wow

I'm conflicted lol
It was cute but at the same time kind of boring compared to the other Hazelwood's books i've read.
And also idk if it's because i'm a deranged human being but, where was the kinky part of this ???? like they had basic vanilla sex ???? which is not a bad thing, but they supposedly bonded on the fact that they shared the same "deranged" kinks and stuff, so i'm kind of confused about they.
+ what the fuck happened with Pen's character development ???

June 13

Boy's Abyss T1, T2, T3
by Ryo Minenami

i absolutely love the art style but the story is making me so uncomfortable that i'm going to stop here

June 14

Wings of Starlight
by Allison Saft

★★★★☆

"Buddy read" with two friends!

I liked it but I feel like I would have enjoyed it more if I had read it as a kid while I was enamored with Tinker Bell lol
Yeah it just felt a bit childish for my taste, but not a bad book!

Jun 8 - Jun 9

Mary
by Nat Cassidy

★★★☆☆

too much supernatural for my taste, just not my types of books.

I don't know how i've read 3 horror books this year even tho it's a genre that i don't like, the synopsis are just so good that i fall into the trap again and again lol

Jun 10 - Jun 12

A Psalm for the Wild-Built
by Becky Chambers

★★★★★

so good ! my first solarpunk novel

I read it in french and i think it enhanced the experience for me because of the use of the "iel" pronoun (the equivalent of "them" to refer to a nonbinary/genderless person) for our main characters, which is something i had never seen in a published novel before. They also created the word "froeur" which is a mix of "frère" (brother) and soeur (sister) to translate "sibling" because there is no gender neutral word for the word in french.

It made me feel really good and hopeful for the future, but also somewhat sad because i feel like it's a world we could never hope to achieve, I was shot back to reality when imediately after finishing it, I learned of the Iran/Israel bombing, with the french president saying he will support isreal no matter what :llll

Jun 13 - Jun 14

Les Aiguilles D'Or
by Michael McDowell

★★★★☆

love love love these Monsieur Toussaint Louverture editions, i really want to make a shelf with only them! The picture doesn't do the cover justice, it's all golden, reflective and embossed.

I started this a WHILE ago but totally forgot about it lol, still an enjoyable read!

May 1 - Jun 18

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
by Yukio Mishima

★★★☆☆

Check out my review on the bookbug page!

Apr 20 - May 11

The Ministry of Time
by Kaliane Bradley

★★★★★

I loved it!!! I ended up with 44 annotations on my ereader so i might buy a physical copy to reread it and annotate it in physical form

Literally a couple day before reading it i was complaining that i hadn't had a favorite book yet this year, and then i read it, and it became my favourite book of the year (for the moment lol). My only complaint is that the 3rd part was kind of rushed/too short, and that I would have liked a less open-ended ending. But appart from that 10/10.

May 27 - May 29

This Is How You Lose the Time War
by Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone

★★★☆☆

I liked the idea but it was a bit confusing, I mixed up who was writing to whom multiple times.

May 11 - May 27

Into the Drowning Deep
by Mira Grant

★★★★☆

I liked it but I needed moreeeeeee, ended way to abruptly for my taste

Also I think I wasn't really the target audience ? Like I don't usually read/like horror books but this didn't feel like horror at all for me, more like action/adventure, I read it mostly in class/at night and didn't feel scared in the slightest.

Mar 27 - Apr 4

Into the Woods
by Tana French

★☆☆☆☆

DNF at 60% but I'm still counting it as finished because i skimmed to the end. I hated this, made me fall in a reading slump because of how BORINGGG IT IS. And we don't even have the reveal of what happened when he was a kid ???? like fym it's a mystery/detective book ??? give me the resolution to the mystery ????

Apr 16 - Apr 24

Kuroko no Basket : Dunk Edition T4
by Tadatoshi Fujimaki

★★★★☆

N/A

March 10

Life Ceremony
by Sayaka Murata

★★★★☆

1. Gross AF 2. Meh 3. Cute ! 4. Also cute 5. Obvious 6. BERKK 7. interesting but not my style 8. kind of inspiring tbh 9. Indifferent 10. hit very close to home 11. my favourite one !

March 13

A Magical Girl Retires
by Park Seolyeon

★★★★☆

Cute but way to short !!!
+ love love love the illustrations by Kim Sanho

Mar 17 - Mar 18

The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All T2 and T3
by Sumiko Arai

★★★★★

cute but it's a bit slow and disjointed for me, i will still read the next volumes tho
T3 edit : NAHHHHH IT'S SO CUTE I'M BUMPING IT TO 5 STARS

Mar 18 - Mar 19

Life for Sale
by Yukio Mishima

★★★★☆

First time borrowing a book at the library of the town where I study! I really have no excuse since it's free for students but it still took me almost 2 years 😳, which also means I read it in French!

I liked it ! Not a 5 stars because i was kind of bothered by how he described women, and because I felt like the end was kind of underwhelming. I would have like 20/30 more pages to get a real resolution, but think I understand the effect that the author wanted to give, like a kind of crash after being pumped full of adrenaline.

Mar 18 - Mar 23

Kuroko no Basket : Dunk Edition T5
by Tadatoshi Fujimaki

★★★★☆

N/A

March 11

Goodnight Punpun Omnibus T1
by Inio Asano

★★☆☆☆

not my thing, a bit too disturbing for me i think, but i'm curious so i might read more

March 14

The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All T1
by Sumiko Arai

★★★★★

finally read the green yuri ! it was really cute !!!

March 18

The Yellow Wallpaper
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

★★☆☆☆

i fear i didn't understand anything about this :(

March 20

Le Chœur des femmes
by Martin Winckler

★★★★☆

Jean is a intern in the gynecology service, but before being able to get her dream job as a clinic head and then as a gynecologic surgeon, they are forced to pass 6 month in a small "Women's Medicine" unit, something they don't care about. They like their patients asleep on an op table, not awake and whining about their problem.

Once again i book i picked up from the library, idk why but I remembered this book title from the bottom of my brain but I didn't knew anything about it, at the library the summary seemed good so I borrowed it. (read in french)

I liked it, but some part of it bothered me. I'm gonna spoil a lot from here so please go read it if it seems interesting to you ! I liked the fact that Jean has a gender neutral name, I feel in the trap and assumed that she was a man at first, and I don't know what that says about me lol. I liked the general writing and the sort of "stream of conciousness" style at time. There were a couple of things I didn't like, like some chapters that I felt were superfluous and kind of cut the rhythm, I also somewhat disliked the brutal revelation/ending, it felt kind of deus ex machina. But even with that, it didn't feel like a 600 pages books and I read it quite fast.

Mar 25 - Mar 30

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect
by Benjamin Stevenson

★★★★☆

I only read one book during February.

Review to come.

Feb 5 - Feb 10

The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession
by Michael Finkel

★★★☆☆

First book of the year ! And it ended up being a disapointment, oh well.

We follow Stéphane Breitwieser, an art thief and his girlfriend and accomplice, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, as they steal many pieces of art around France, Belgium, and other neighbouring countries.

It's a nonfiction book, which is a genre I don't usually read but the summary seemed up my alley so I picked it up and read it during boring classes. I really liked the first part of the book, while reading we feel the same adrenaline that Breitwieser and Anne-Catherine feel while stealing, but after a while it becomes quite repetitive, all of their break-in are the same and the story doesn't feel exciting anymore. At the end, it really fell flat for me, the ending almost seems rushed. When Breitwieser is finally caught by the police, we get a couple chapters of him talking with policemen and a detective (?) but I felt like I was reading the same chapter over and over. We never really know what happened to the stolen pieces, or Anne-Catherine.
Not really a bad book, just really repetitive.

Jan 3 - Jan 16

The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels
by Janice Hallett

★★★☆☆

I picked this one because I liked The Twyford Code, but this one ended up being more like a 2.5 stars.

Jan 16 - Jan 21

The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters

★★★★☆

Short but still good !

Jan 22 - Jan 24

Boys Run the Riot (4 volumes)
by Keito Gaku

★★★★☆

I read the first volume when I was in high-school for our manga club and I really liked it back then, so I decided to pick it back up (once again during a boring class) and went through the four volumes in around 2 hours.

We follow a trans highschooler, Ryo, during the discovery of their identity and of their love for fashion.

I really liked it ! I didn't give it 5 stars because it felt like the ending was rushed, we don't have any resolution on multiple storylines, like Ryo's love story or Jin's dad story.

Jan 28

Weyward
by Emilia Hart

★★★★★

Review to come.

Jan 24 - Jan 29